Magic and mysticism of Daniil Kharms

Abstract

   The Oberiut poet Daniil Kharms (1905–1942) created his own version of the occult-oriental synthesis in the manner that the Austrian writer Gustav Meyrink (1868–1932), and not only him, practiced. The occult worldview makes it possible to include in such a synthesis any religion from Buddhism to Orthodoxy, uniting them according to the principle of magical effectiveness. The difference between the syntheses of Meyrink and Harms was that the former alternated between Buddhist and occult initiations during the fin de sciecle era, when they were in great vogue. And the latter did that ten or twenty years later in Soviet Russia, where such things were persecuted by an atheistic state. Another important difference was that Meyrink acted as a missionary in his works, but did it indirectly, while Kharms tried to directly transform the world, relying on the alleged magical power of avant-garde poetry.